How do female directors improve board governance? A mechanism based on norm changes

Prior literature documents that corporate boards with female directors produce better governance outcomes than all-male boards. However, female directors constitute the minority on most boards, which precludes majority voting as the mechanism through which they change board decisions. We identify changing the norms of how the board works as this mechanism. Using the market for norms framework, we explain how female directors are effective even without possessing a board majority or other sources of symbolic power, such as hierarchical authority and social gravitas. Empirically, we show that independent female directors, compared to their male counterparts, are more effective at changing board norms (board processes) and improving governance (board outputs).     

Social media-based analysis of cultural ecosystem services and heritage tourism in a coastal region of Mexico

Understanding spatial patterns of visitation and benefits accrued to different types of natural and cultural heritage tourists may have important implications for the sustainable management of their destinations. We investigate cultural services accrued to local, domestic and international visitors to the Usumacinta floodplain, a coastal region with one of the highest biological and cultural diversities in Mexico. We combine analysis of social media photographs and high-resolution land cover mapping to identify different cultural services and their association with specific ecosystem and land cover types. Hotspots for international tourists are spatially restricted to well-known and accessible sites. Locals are 2.2–2.5 times more likely than international visitors to be associated with aesthetic appreciation and birdwatching. Locals upload more photographs of coastal lagoons, mangroves, beach and sea. Results are analyzed in light of land cover changes in the region and provide valuable information to decision makers for improved tourism management and conservation strategies.     

基于资本配置效率的中国股票市场制度有效性分析

用资本配置效率表征股票市场制度有效性。使用面板数据分析方法,从行业和地区视角,对中国实行发行核准制度期间股票市场的资本配置效率进行了实证分析。结果表明:中国股票市场的资本配置效率较低,资本配置功能的实现程度较低,股票市场制度低效。指出:中国股票市场的制度变迁应由"政府主导"转变为"市场主导"、加大违规处罚力度、培育理性而成熟的投资者,从而更好地实现股票市场制度功能、提升制度有效性。     

The determinants of capital intensity in Japan and the US

We estimate the determinants of capital intensity in Japan and the US, characterized by striking different paths. We augment an otherwise standard Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) model with demand-side considerations, which we find especially relevant in the US. In this augmented setting, the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor is placed between 0.74 and 0.90 in Japan, and around 0.30 in the US. We also find evidence of biased technical change, which is capital-saving in Japan but labor-saving in the US. These differences help us explain the diverse experience in the capital deepening process of these economies, and lead us to conclude that demand-side drivers, quite relevant in the US, may also be relevant to account for different growth experiences. A close look at the nature of technological change is also needed before designing one-size-fits-all industrial, economic growth, and/or labor market policies.     

Socio‐economic transitions and everyday life changes in the rural world: Pyrenean households and their contemporary economic history

This article focuses on understanding rural life and how agrarian everyday life changes as a consequence of the radical socio‐economic transformations that, across the world, have accompanied rural communities in their transition from economies of subsistence to industrial production, and, in some areas, from there to providers of service to the tourism‐oriented leisure economy. In the last century in the Alt Urgell District (Spanish Pyrenees), many communities went from a production model based on subsistence farming and livestock breeding first to a specialization in milk production and later to tourism. The industrialization of milk production, the radical transformation of the scale of their operations, and the monetization of life transformed the identity and structure of these communities. The subsequent transformation of many of these farms to accommodate the leisure industry changed the shape of these households again. This paper reflects on how science, governance, commodification, and technology played a role on the transformation of the rural mountain areas, their people, and their everyday life.     

Loss and damage: a critical discourse analysis of Parties’ positions in climate change negotiations

The years-long negotiations on loss and damage (L&D) associated with climate change impacts reached a milestone with the adoption of the Paris Agreement, sanctioning the permanence of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) created in 2013. The WIM aims at advancing knowledge gathering, coordination and support to address L&D associated with extreme and slow onset events in vulnerable developing countries (Decision 2/CP.19). Despite being among the most controversial issues to be recently treated in climate change negotiation, L&D has attracted little attention in the field of international relations. This paper aims at addressing this gap by reconstructing the emergence and evolution of the negotiating positions on L&D of developing and developed countries. It employs a critical discourse analytical approach and builds on Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for critical discourse analysis, taking decision 2/CP.19 as the core communicative event. Consistently, the decision is analysed at three different levels: as a text (micro-scale); as a discursive practice (meso-scale); and as a social practice (macro-scale). The analysis makes use of a wide range of materials including previous decisions, High Level Segment statements and Parties submissions. It reconstructs Parties’ conflicting views on the positioning of L&D vis-à-vis the adaptation space (L&D as a part of, or as beyond adaptation) and the scientific, ethical and legal arguments employed to support these standpoints. It highlights, in particular, the strategic importance which the ‘compensation argument’ had in determining developing countries’ capacity to influence the UNFCCC process up to the inclusion of a specific article on L&D in the Paris Agreement. While calls for compensation might have lost momentum as a result of the Warsaw and Paris talks, the paper argues that their potential is far from exhausted. They in fact imply a more general request for climate justice which the UNFCCC has not yet addressed.     

绍兴市土地利用时空变化研究

[目的]探讨经济发达地区土地利用变化时空规律,为城市发展提供合理土地利用政策,同时优化土地利用结构以支持经济可持续发展。[方法]通过遥感影像获取长时间序列的土地利用数据,探讨近30多年来绍兴市的土地利用变化,进一步利用土地利用动态变化模型,对绍兴市土地利用变化过程、趋势、变化轨迹进行了深入分析。[结果](1)绍兴市土地利用在1980~2000年相对稳定,在2000年后变化强度逐年增强,2005~2015年土地利用转化量增多和类型多样。绍兴市东北部平原和县区核心区域是经济发达地区土地利用变化的活跃区域,主要是其他类型土地向建设用地转移;(2)1980~2015年绍兴市土地利用变化轨迹主要受到人口增长和GDP增长的影响。[结论]城市化的发展和人口的迅速增长,使城市人口和土地面积迅速增加,造成城市边缘的农业用地转化成了建设用地。经济的发展、科技的进步及政府政策的制定,改变了人们的生活和工作方式,进而影响土地利用类型。